Blogging about depression, anxiety, recovery, and whatever I can think of.

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In terms of date keeping, like data, I think it’s always good to keep a backup just in case things get really weird.

Since my New Year’s Day Initiation Ritual, I’ve seen quite a lot of synchronicity, patterns, or otherwise signposts along the way. I’ve seen cats appear and disappear. Hell, I even mused that in the Charlie Daniels Band song, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”, Johnny loses the challenge the moment that he accepts it, because the Devil appeals to Johnny’s pride as the best fiddler in these here part. A fiddle of gold as a prize for beating the Devil? Haha, no sir. The Devil always has an out and he has Johnny’s soul. But then, mere days later, this tweet pops up on my timeline:

I don’t know about you but I can see Charlie Daniels accepting a fight against the Illuminati and not coming out with the Golden Apple, let alone the Golden Fiddle.

As the days continued, so did the sense of synchronicity. And the artifacts kept coming. As attentive as I have always been to making patterns and seeing connections, even these were getting quite unnerving, and it reached a point to where I actually confessed to a friend, “I’m responsible for manifesting Charlie Daniels in the common unconscious.”

The trick is to discern that which is a Profound Truth and that which is a Hot Take. This game needs a streaker to disrupt the play on the field.

It’s odd when you contact the universe and it decides to take the call. Now, I feel like we’re back to playing phone tag but that’s okay because what I’ve learned so far is enough to keep me busy until we chat again.

What I’ve learned so far is this:

I am a writer and I was put here to write. I have stories to tell, real ones and mythic ones and fables and technical support and all that it entails.

I want to tell the story of the Orangutan family, the connections I’ve felt with these intelligent, yet severely endangered entities: Bornean, Sumatran, and the recently discovered Tapanuli. Arboreal wizards.

That we are all experience the same moment but in different subjective viewpoints.

That when you need to make the change, you will either get the Nudge, the Shove, or the Boot to the Ass. Sometimes, you have to jump off that ledge and know that you’ll fly.

That my mythic essence is for real and that I have to be both the Gentleman and the Beast, not parcel it out when its convenient for others.

That I am loving myself now, that I’m not perfect and I’m not expected to be by the people who have my better interests at heart. I can have that torrid love affair and know that I’m really not alone.

That I am.

That if you put it out there, it will get noticed.

That we’re all in this together and that I have a need for compassion and empathy, you have the same needs, and even They have the same needs. The goal is to make this second nature.

That maybe the half-orc barbarian I have always been doesn’t mean that I also can’t be a half-orc wizard, ranger, or bard.

That OOK means many things, but it’s not an excuse to be rude or intolerable.

What does OOK mean? I’ll tell you another time, but there’s a hint in my last post.

There’s more but I don’t want to get bogged down in list making right now. Suffice to say, what I am to do is this…

To write, to create interesting brain pictures for the reader. To learn to do something with all of the apples in my fridge. Oh, what snarky Gen X patois can I put on this to make it palatable? I don’t even remember anything so far as speech or slang. I remember at the time being caught up in the ideas of Shoulds and Should Nots, which is why I’ve been doing the things I’m doing now. Making up for lost time? Fitting all the fun I missed out on and jamming it in with the fun I’m having now? Is that even measurable? Who knows.

For now, there are books to read and rites to perform and gratitudes to be noted. This is scary, it is challenging, and it is humbling. But it’s also gratifying, warm, and positive. There are lessons to be learned.

Last Monday, otherwise known in Western Culture as New Year’s Day of 2018/3184, was a rather substantial day for me filled with profound and profoundly positive insights. While I won’t go into the exact details, initiation rites, inciting events, art, monologues, music, etc., it has left me distinctly changed and with a sense of identity.

Such as it is, I have aligned myself with the BeaST, the Magical Orangutan. See below.

One. Our. Kind. A work in progress

Okay, that’s more of a sigil than anything, but it’s my branding and I’m digging it. Oh, and more on the Magical Orangutan idea when I get around to figuring it out myself.

Towards the tail end of 2017, I put in work towards becoming a Chaos Magician. That link will take you to Gordon White, not a definition of CM but it’s as good a place as any to get a looksee. My intent through all of this was to Just Do It, Now or Never, Git’er Done. The years that I’ve spent refusing My True Self, denying doing what I’m doing here in this reality now because it’s all entropy, right? was a belligerent refusal to put in work, or being around people/environments who were receptive to what I wanted to achieve.

I feel a profound sense of freedom from that past as well as a muffling of the Trickster negative voice who always wants to cry Skeptic! Bullshit! Materialism! For long time readers, this is a significant threshold.

However…

I’m not totally solved now, and there is so much more to do. I have rituals to perform, love to make, books to read, minds to peace. But what I do know is this… I write. I write well. I have an nigh endless supply of notebooks, but not infinite. Sitting here writing, journaling to Balinese Gamelan music is what I like doing.